Data visualizations are an effective way to communicate data. Information visualization uses visual representations of data to aid in human understanding of relationships and patterns in the data. With the proliferation of “big data” there is increasing demand for data analysts familiar with visual analytics, but there is a short supply of such individuals and tools. Making the tools easier to use would enable a larger number of people to take charge of their data questions and produce insightful visual charts.
Some data visualization systems include tools to assist people in the creation of data visualizations, and some systems even make suggestions based on the data types of selected fields. For example, if two quantitative fields are selected, a scatter plot may be recommended. Examples of such systems are described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,099,674, entitled “Computer Systems and Methods for Automatically Viewing Multidimensional Databases,” which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Some data visualization systems automatically generate marks in a data visualization to represent one or more data fields from a data source. For example, some techniques are described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/214,818, entitled “Methods and Systems of Automatically Generating Marks in a Graphical View,” which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.